Ahhh...I can still hear her shrill, shrieking voice.

Good times....uh, I mean, pretty bad times.

The main thing that separated her from other scam artists was her foul mouth.

Indian sex guru and his lover -- too funny. Ms Sheela seems to have lost none of her overweening, self-revering capacity for drivel… Can’t say as I heard any hint of remorse there, either. The woman’s as psycho as ever it seems. Too bad for her patients, though.

Wonder what happened to the late Mr. Birnstiel?

It was an accident.

Salad overdose?

Don't eat the Ma Anand croutons.

Dispute the messenger all you like, yet the message describes a Dream machine we can make at home, as remedy for dementia and psychopathy and, possibly, the infamy heaped on America out of Bushbutcher's backwards dream: 'maerd', or in Spanish, merde.

What's that in Hindi, Tensk?

Wow. I haven't read such a concentrated dose of babble since Factsheet Five went under.

Whoa! Memories. I wanted to talk about being a news reporter during the tenure of Sheela and the Bhagwan in Oregon, but that
Tenskwatawawatawatawata stuff gave me a brain cramp. So I need to take a nap. Some day, ask me about the Bhagwan, Sheela, Margaret Hill, Turner and Dave Frohnmayer.

still selling snake oil I see.....

I met Sheela Silverman a long time ago when the Bhagwan was starting out in Montclair NJ and I was an undergraduate student at Montclair State College. Buy me a beer Jack, and I'll tell you the whole story.

"but that Tenskwatawawatawatawata stuff gave me a brain cramp."
+++

The Rancho Rajneesh had the highest concentration of PhDs of anywhere. Of course, all the free drugs, sex and red clothing anybody could ever want took a huge toll on each of them. Nowadays, almost all of them are walking urban streets pushing shopping carts and muttering to themselves. All, that is, except one ex-Rajneeshy who spends his time commenting incoherently on a famous Portland Tax Professor's blog.

Matt -- Small world!

I was a kid working in a Radio Shack in the Thurston neighborhood of Springfield during the early days of Rajneeshpuram, before I'd heard about them. I'd just locked the door on a Sunday evening (after having sold practically nothing all day) when a Rolls Royce pulls up outside, and a woman in a sari and two big Indian guys get out and knock on the door.

I hadn't closed out the register yet, and even though I wasn't supposed to open the door, I did. They came in, bought every piece of phone recording equipment in the store (really primitive stuff, little sucker things that attached to the handpiece) and paid for it all with a Platinum card, which you just didn't see too often in those days, particularly on the outskirts of Springfield in those dark days of the Reagan administration.

I had to go into a meeting at one of the central stores later in the week, and mentioned the incident. One of the other guys said that they'd bought up every piece of phone recording equipment at every RS branch in Eugene and Springfield. Apparently, I was the last stop that day.

"... one ex-Rajneeshy who spends his time commenting incoherently on a famous Portland Tax Professor's blog. -- Harry | June 12, 2008 9:56 PM." No one should hold it against you; probably you were younger and impressionabler then. Come for the data, stay for the democracy in the sanctuary -- the Free Market of Information.

Happy to be of bother.

I was in the wholesale business when Rajneesh Puram started rolling. They were initially viewed as a godsend... spending tons of money with area businesses during one of the worst economy's in memory.

Then they started going past due and stiffing all their creditors.